For Colored Girls Is NOT Anti Black Men

I know I've already done a post about For Colored Girls but I just had to respond to the constant complaints I have heard saying that this movie was just another attempt by Tyler Perry to make black men look bad. Number one, maybe some people should actually pick up a copy of the play and read it (I mean it really is not that long my copy is like 80 pages). If they did they would know that this story was NOT written by Tyler Perry.

Secondly, if you walked away from the movie thinking that the message was "black men ain't worth nothing" then clearly you were not paying attention. To me the movie was clearly about women in general (not just black women) and the struggles that we all go through with men. But like Phylicia Rashad's character says to Kimberly Elise towards the end, we women have to take personal responsibility for the role we played in our own situation. There are bad men out there, clearly. And unfortunately many of us women go through experiences with men that we don't have to because we choose to ignore what is right there in front of us. The Lady in Green knew her man kept cheating and walking out and she still kept taking him back. The Lady in Red knew her man was on the down low, and continued to love him, as she said, on purpose. The message behind this film is not one of man bashing, but clearly about women "becoming themselves" by recognizing who they are which in turn causes them to not settle for anything less than they deserve.

Further, the cast was all black because that is how the play was written. But it could have just as easily been white men in those situations, or hispanic men, or Asian men (you get my point). I went to the movies to see this with girls that were not black and even they could relate to the film. I think everyone complaining that this movie is a bash on black men is just looking for something to complain about. If you couldn't look past the color of these men and just see them as bad men who happened to be black, then you probably have some other race issues that you really need to deal with.

For all the men that hate this being the story of so many women, then change your behavior! Oh but wait, it's much easier to insult Tyler Perry than it is to look at yourself in the mirror and take personal responsibility for all the women you have personally abused over the years. Maybe instead of making insults you need to ask yourself why you felt you were personally reflected in the bad male characters as opposed to the one really good one...